With the big news of Daniel Ricciardo leaving Red Bull for Renault, there will be a vacant at Red Bull for the 2019 season. Vacant seats on the top three Formula One powerhouses don’t appear often, so there is a long list of potential candidates in line for the seat. But there are two names on that list that I don’t want to see get that seat.
Unlike when Nico Rosberg retired from Mercedes after winning his World Drivers’ Championship title, Red Bull has been given plenty of warning in advance and will have a ton of time to search for a good replacement. Unfortunately though, Toro Rosso rookies Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley are near the top of the potential replacements, but I don’t think they should be.
Neither driver has done anything special to prove that they are worthy of the seat. Even factoring in that the Toro Rosso team made the ill-advised switch to the Honda power unit, the results of their drivers haven’t been very impressive at all.
The only exception could be Pierre Gasly, who scored a P4 result in Bahrain this season, but that was a result largely determined by starting position and old-fashioned luck. The mechanical failures of front runners Daniel Ricciardo Kimi Räikkönen were the only reason that Gasly went from P5 on the grid to P4 by the end of the race. Other than that, Gasly pretty much just held his position with little competition. It certainly was an impressive result for the team, but not an impressive drive.
Gasly and Hartley don’t have the experience required to take the seat at Red Bull. We all witnessed what can happen if a driver advances too soon, as was the case with Daniil Kvyat. It would be a massive injustice to promote either Toro Rosso driver to that seat.
The much better fit is clearly Carlos Sainz, who just became free on the market. He put in solid consistent results during his time at the team and has done a good job in his new position at Renault. It would be almost criminal to pass on him in favor of one of the Toro Rosso duo.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company. Assumptions made in any analysis contained within this article are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the author.
